Emotional immune system
12 August 2026
When your emotional immune system fails, it is existential in its effects.
I like to think of myself as a fairly robust sort of person. That is, I don’t often feel taken apart by a situation. This is also true on the upside. I guess I don’t often feel completely overwhelmed by things either positively or negatively. My base emotional level is rather pleasant, and I don’t deviate very much from it.
One interesting reflection on my mental state over the past year or so is that things have been bothering me slightly more. There is a twinge of an over-think, a pang of anxiety. I don’t want to exaggerate - the levels we are talking about probably pale in comparison to that of many others, including many I know - but it is a change. And it got me thinking.
The past year has been somewhat fraught with tragedy for me. At times it has been as if my mind is Harold’s 1066 anglo-saxon army successfully defeating Hadrada and Tostig’s viking forces only to be informed that there is a Norman contingent down south, waiting for whatever is remaining. My mind and soul are computational devices, and there is only enough RAM for 10 Chrome tabs, thank you very much. But I think the most striking metaphor, and the one I identify with the most, is of an immune system. Forgive me but we’re going to take it as far as it deserves - maybe further.
When difficulties arise, and negative thoughts threaten to dominate, a working emotional immune system kicks into gear. White blood cells rush to quell and dismiss. The response is measured, though. Not all anxiety is the enemy and not all worry needs extinguishing. The immune system triages and diagnoses on behalf of its host prior to appropriate reaction. Emotional allergies are possible in the circumstances that the response is out of proportion, or a harmless target identified. The result is often rejection of rationale but in the opposite direction - overly positive outlook in the face of damning evidence. But nevertheless, mostly the immune system is a force for good. The overt negativity is sometimes completely shielded from the person’s consciousness - only perhaps brought to their attention by a well-meaning friend’s reaction: “That must have been so difficult” or “Weren’t you worried about X?”
What I think has been true in my case, is a systemic dimming of the immune system and its ability to do this triaging. It is a lowering of the ability to discern between the fleeting sparks of thoughts that can be left to burn themselves out, and the embers which threaten to engulf. On a practical level this shows up as overthinking small interactions, questioning inconsequential pieces of speech, and generally feeling ill-at-ease with one’s place in the world.
Everyone has a different baseline for their immune system. Much of our development is about gaining an intuition for how it works. Some people’s immune systems are more active, some less. But it is an unsettling thing to notice a difference in the workings of the immune system itself.
In my experience when a trauma or tragedy exerts itself over my life, a shadow is cast. It is not simply a thought to be triaged by the immune system. Rather, it is more akin to an immuno-suppressant condition or an auto-immune disease. It causes systemic disruption to the goings on of triaging and responding.
Now we will escape the metaphor to talk for a moment about how shocking and disorienting this can be for a person, because I think it deserves that. One can be left all at sea by a change in baseline anxiety, rate of thought and speed of worry. It is profoundly affecting. A - however unjustified - feeling of betrayal grows and grows. But the more you sit with yourself, and these changes, the more comfortable you get with them. You gain an intuition. The only way I have found to do this is, indeed, sit with yourself. I try not to police my thoughts, and if I want to overthink then I let myself do so. Maybe instead of a pathological immune system disorder, it is simply a change to become used to.
I can get used to a change in how my mind works, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the experience of it changing.